


two tides of ice

by cirque



Category: Original Work
Genre: Apocalypse, Demons, Prophecy, Snow and Ice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27562945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/pseuds/cirque
Summary: Kara is not the only one who has been trying to outrun destiny.
Relationships: The Chosen One/Their Fated Rival
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	1. Then

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadaras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts).



> If you're on desktop, please click [here](https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/winterSoundscapeGenerator.php) for a soundscape to get you in the mood. Alternatively find it on Spotify [here](https://open.spotify.com/track/21wKpTlC65qkb9eJNy9dYd?si=6IYEJkT-Qcqhvf7bzPPKBQ).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Shut up,” said Siv, who did not care that Kara was the Chosen One.

There was magic in the water. There were other things, too: ice fish, microscopic bugs, sometimes bears. But the magic was the main thing, the thing from which all else stemmed, once upon a time. Kara dipped her hand in and it felt like fire, so cold it hurt like a burn.

“This is only a dream,” she told herself. She wished for the magic to soak into her freezing fingers, get into her blood, go trailing to her heart where it would carry to her brain. If she kept her hand in long enough, she would have magic enough to destroy the Lamia.

This is only a dream, she told the icy pain. She was a child still, little in a way she had always feared: defenseless. 

There were demons about. She would catch her death out here. Her fingers felt like thin twigs, like they would snap from the cold.

The sky was green and purple, the Northern lights at play. It was the long winter, and it felt like it. The sun lay hiding in wait beneath the horizon, with no plans to surface yet. She was shivering in her coat, and ghosts were howling on the wind. Someone was coming. She shouldn’t be by the water. She shouldn’t be out here alone. Her mother would be upset.

“This is only a dream,” she said out loud, “it can’t hurt you”. But it wasn’t true.

She tore her hand from the water, and it steamed in the air. Her fingers were red, red and raw, and they were numb and slick with ice. The magic within was pulsing through her, destined for her heart. She felt it beneath the skin, a warmth that was quite welcome. She reminded herself to breathe. This wasn’t easy, else everyone would do it. It had to be her, it always had to be her.

The wind carried a foul groaning, something lurking to the North. The Lamia was near. She could almost hear its footsteps, dragging its bulk across the tundra, the horrid thickness of its heavy breath. She had never seen it before, only in pictures. Would it hurt, when it ate her, or would that be numb, too?

“This is a dream,” she said again, but that wasn’t true either, was it? “This is fate.”

* * *

She woke and it was dark. It was always dark this time of year, of course, she could not control the seasons any more than she could control her dreams. She was in her bed at the cabin, _safe._ The Lamia would not find her here. 

Still, she was little more than a child, and she was scared. Her mother was not here and so Edda would have to suffice. She slipped out of bed and crept past Siv, who was still sleeping like a log. She was staying over again, her parents had gone to the city on a brief break. Raising a cursed child was hard work, apparently. Kara’s own mother called her a gift, but Kara always wondered--her weird child who could do such unspeakable things. It was not nice to contemplate.

Sleep came easily to Siv; _everything_ came easily to Siv. Siv’s dreams were sweet, and only sometimes were they of the Lamia, and even then she didn’t wake up crying like Kara. How stupid.

She tiptoed out of the small bedroom and into the hallway beyond. The house was old and it made noises in its sleep, creaking sounds in the floorboards that betrayed Kara’s mission. She froze. Any second now.

“You’re awake,” came Edda’s half-whispered voice. She was ever quiet, Edda, but especially so when she spoke to the children.

“I had a dream,” Kara offered in explanation.

“I don’t suppose it will help to tell you it wasn’t real?” Edda came walking up the stairs. She was an old woman but she looked all the older for not wearing her make-up. She was fresh from bed. It was perhaps six am, and she held out a glass of milk for Kara. There was a solemn look on her face. Edda was ever serious.

“It _was_ real, wasn’t it?” Kara took the milk. It was cold from the fridge and her teeth chattered. 

“Yes,” said Edda, because she had been instructed not to lie to them. Lies did not help win a war, after all. “What was it this time?”

“I’m walking through the snow. The Lamia is after me. I get to the water and climb in, and even though it’s cold it’s okay, because I can feel the magic flowing into me. But then the Lamia gets closer, and I wake up.” 

“Oh. Well. It’s a little thin on details.” Edda’s mouth twitched at the corners, a little ghost of a smile. “Think about the grass. Think about the bear, hibernating.”

This was their exercise to calm Kara down, to mellow out her thoughts if the magic ever got too much for her. It was a balm of sorts, this vision of a bear hibernating in the snowy grass, warm and well-fed and at peace. She tried it, feeling the rough edges of its fur in her mind’s eye, breathing slowly along with it, and it worked. The panic of the nightmare was fading.

“Would you like to call your mother?”

Kara considered this. She was eleven, was that too old to go crying to her mama? “Yes, please.”

Edda slipped her phone from her pocket. Both Siv and Kara had their parents on speed dial--it just made sense. Kara clicked speed dial number two and pressed the phone against her ear. It was early; mama might not answer.

“Kara?” She sounded half asleep. Raising a child of prophecy was hard work, Kara supposed, even when that child spent half their time at a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

“Mama!”

“Are you okay, darling?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. But…” she felt ashamed now. It was stupid. “I just had a dream.”

“About…?” Kara’s mother did not like to say the Lamia’s name. She feared it, perhaps more than Kara did. At first she had been resistant to the idea of her child being the chosen one, but then who wouldn’t be? She hadn’t wanted Kara to start coming to the cabin, to start her training. She had been reluctant. But even she could not deny the power of the prophecy. Kara didn’t know what they told her, but it had worked.

“Yes. The same as all the others.”

“Would you like me to come pick you up?”

She couldn’t go running to her mother every time she had a bad dream. She had to grow up eventually. But she wanted to run. She wanted mama to come get her and they’d get in the car and just go. Maybe they’d even leave Svalbard. Kara had always wanted to go to the mainland. They could outrun the prophecy, couldn’t they?

“No. It’s okay. It was only a dream.”

“But…” But what? But it _was_ real, just not yet. “If you’re sure. Have you had breakfast?”

“No. Edda’s cooking, I think.”

“Good, that’s good. Well, if you’re okay… I’ll see you in two days, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. I love you, pumpkin.”

“I love you too, mama.”

Edda came up as Kara was hanging up. She handed her the phone back.

“Better?” Edda asked, and Kara nodded. She knew one day her mother might not be able to make things better, but that was not today. Edda clapped her hands together, as if to urge her onwards.

Kara followed her downstairs into the kitchen. The table was laden with breakfast: eggs and sausages, toast and honey, but Kara didn’t care for that. She made straight for the Cheerios. She was ever predictable. Edda rolled her eyes but still she smiled. She sat opposite Kara, and her presence was a comfort, even though she could not dispel the nightmare.

“Should we wake Siv?”

“No,” said Kara, who did not like Siv. Everything was better when Siv was asleep, and Kara counted herself lucky that sleeping was Siv’s favourite pastime. Siv never cared that they were preparing for war. Siv was Siv, and Kara preferred her asleep.

“I’ll give her another half hour. But I want you both training by eight o’clock, remember?”

Kara ignored this, and spooned cereal into her mouth. She was, after all, eleven years old. Edda tutted, but Kara did not mind. There were few things she knew with certainty, but one of those things was thus: Edda loved her, in much the same way that her mother did. Edda loved them both. Edda’s love was simple and uncomplicated, changeless as the tundra.

Stomping betrayed Siv’s arrival. She smiled at them as though she had not expected to find them awake, as though she wasn’t always the last to rise. Like Kara she was still in her bed clothes, and her hair was a wacky display of blonde spikes.

“Good morning!” she said, nauseatingly bright. How could she be so happy this early in the morning? It was barely six.

“Morning sweet one,” Edda said, and gestured to the spread of food before them. Siv’s eyes lit up, and she made for the honeyed toast. There was avocado too, a rare treat indeed. Such things hardly ever graced their table, but sometimes a guest brought a gift for the Chosen One, meant to curry her favour, from the big cities or sometimes from further afield.

Kara rolled her eyes. “Leave some for everyone else.”

“Shut up,” said Siv, who did not care that Kara was the Chosen One.

“Both of you shut up,” said Edda, who easily grew bored of their bickering. “We have a guest this evening. Codename Vidar. I expect you both to be welcoming. I want you on your best behaviour.” Edda would never let it be said that she didn’t raise respectful girls. She did not care for their magics, for their fates, for the stories they must learn to recognise as truth. She cared about their manners, their diets, their worries.

Siv paused her relentless chewing. She frowned. “Why is he here?”

“His business is his own,” was Edda’s reply.

“Why is he called Vidar?”

“That is also none of your concern.”

“Does he have magic?”

“Oh, Siv! Rest your mouth, for just a moment.”

Kara laughed into her cereal. Siv was ever full of questions.

“My toast is cold,” Siv said instead. “Kara?”

Kara knew what she wanted. She looked to Edda, who looked unconcerned. The magic tickled in Kara’s palm. The heat was growing, even now. She could do it. It wouldn’t even hurt. But Siv was often cruel to Kara, did she deserve warm toast?

“Please?” She held out the plate.

Kara passed her hand over it, sighing. Maybe Siv wouldn’t beat her so hard in training. Maybe she could magic away Siv’s enthusiasm. All the same, the toast steamed.

“We didn’t give you the best magical education possible for you to heat up _toast._ You are not an appliance.” Edda looked amused though. She liked it when they got on.

“Kara, make it so that Edda sounds like she’s sucked in helium.”

Edda frowned. “That would be most unwise.”

Kara considered. It would be funny, but there would inevitably be punishment; Edda didn’t like her using her power for bad things. Toast was one thing, trivial and small, but messing with people’s bodies? That had been one of the first things Kara had learned not to do. 

Kara got lost in the thrill of it: in the _thwack_ of staff against staff, wooden practise toys meant to strengthen their muscles; in the grunt that escaped from Siv’s mouth as she danced left and right; at the shout of their instructor. She enjoyed fighting, in much the same way that she enjoyed classroom studies. She was no good at it, but it felt like preparation.

“Again, this time _stronger._ ”

 _Thwack went_ the sticks again, and this time Siv caught Kara’s knuckles. She seized the advantage and pressed the point of her staff in the hollow above Kara’s collarbone. The wood bit into her skin, and Siv threw back her head and laughed. Her breath turned to steam in the icy air.

“You’ll have to be quicker than that against the Lamia,” the instructor warned her, but the Lamia wasn’t here. It was just Siv, stupid laughing Siv.

Kara planted her feet in the snow. It came up past her ankles. She’d worked up a sweat and was uncomfortable in her snowsuit, but it was fine. She had a plan. She yielded and waited for Siv to lower her staff--then, she struck. She punched Siv hard in the mouth. Blood spurted free as her lip broke against her teeth.

“Don’t fight dirty,” the instructor warned them, but too late. Her mother would be angry.

Siv hit back, and launched herself onto Kara. They tumbled to the ground. The wind got knocked out of her. Their fall was broken by the snow, and it was the snow that swallowed up the sounds of their scuffle. Kara’s face was covered with Siv’s hot slippy blood, and she spat onto the ground.

Kara frowned, and made Siv’s ankle twist, almost enough to break it. The magic flowed out easily, manipulating Siv’s little body, wrapping itself around her Achilles tendon. She could do worse than a sore ankle, for sure, if she wanted. She need only think it.

“You cheat!” Siv yelled. She was used to it. She punched Kara in the belly, hitting upwards and making contact with her kidney. She slapped at Siv, forgetting her training, trying to get her off. They were near enough the same weight; they were near enough matched.

“You fight like children!” Their instructor drawlled. 

_We are children,_ Kara wanted to spit, but it was no use. They weren’t children. They were soldiers. They were fighting a war that might never come, but they had to be ready.

“Do you think the Lamia will let you roll around in the snow?” their instructor barked. He was a harsh man, but then you had to be to live in such a place. The ice had made him cruel. It did that to people. “Do you think the Lamia cares if you’ve a split lip, if you can’t breathe, if you’re _cold?_ ” he said this last in a mocking tone.

There were tears in Kara’s eyes from the pain. Why couldn’t she just fight like Siv? Why did everything have to hurt her? She was sensitive, _weak,_ they all said it but somehow it hurt more coming from Siv. What was that?

“I’m fighting a shadow,” Siv laughed, “A weak little shadow. And now you’re crying?” Siv got off her at last, and kicked at her kneecaps. She threw back her head and laughed. There was ever an ease about her. She was comfortable with who she was and where she was. There was none of Kara’s doubt, none of her fears.

Siv snatched up her staff again. “Fight me proper. Go on.”

Kara hated her. The hate made a home inside her, deep in her chest where her heart ought to be. She growled, and grabbed her own staff, and raised it high above her head.

“Aim lower,” the instructor sighed, and his words were as wind, lost in the tundra. 

“But the Lamia is tall!” Kara protested. She did not lower her staff.

“Your current opponent is not. Fight in the moment, Chosen One. There will be time for the Lamia later. For now you fight Siv, and she is a fierce one. Be ready.”

Kara had barely lowered her staff before Siv launched forward. Kara’s staff went flying off to the left and Siv crowed victorious. Kara kicked her shin. Another bruise. If she couldn’t even beat skinny little Siv, how would she ever fight the Lamia? 

She punched Siv in the throat, knocking her down. While Siv choked on her own lungs, Kara retrieved the staff. She swung at Siv’s chest, at her belly, at her reddening throat. 

“Dead,” she yelled, as she landed a blow beneath her chin. “Dead again,” she swiped her across the head. If it were a sword she would be headless, but then Kara would be dead by now too. Blood from Siv’s lip spattered the snow, staining it pinkish.

The instructor frowned. He was never pleased. “Again,” he said, and the snow swallowed that up, too.

“I had a dream last night.” 

Kara was unimpressed. Siv had many dreams, after all. 

“Congratulations.”

“A _future_ dream.”

As a rule, Kara and Siv did not talk. Usually. Siv was not always around, in fact she was present less and less as the years went by. She spent most of the time with her parents and she came to the cabin only when training could not be ignored. Kara was here often; she was the chosen one, after all. Her mother let her come three days a week, and it was not frequently that her days coincided with Siv’s.

But today she was here, and she was talking.

They were sitting side by side on the edge of the bathtub, barefoot, freshly washed, applying bandages to their wounds. Siv’s lip had finally stopped dripping. Kara was rubbing balm into her ribs.

Siv looked distraught. “It was the Lamia. It destroyed the planet from tundra to desert. We didn’t stop it.”

“Maybe it won’t come true?” Kara was not very good at being sympathetic, least of all to Siv, who generally was insufferable and infuriating but never in need of something so trivial as _comfort_.

“All my dreams come true.”

Sif got the power of premonition while Kara got her own personal demon to kill. Their teachers called that fate. Kara called it unfair. Why didn’t the rest of the world have to struggle with a prophecy, why weren’t they cursed too? But no, it wasn’t a curse. It was a duty, that’s what mama said. Everyone had a job to do in the world, she said, and Kara was made to slay the Lamia. 

“Every last one,” there were tears in her eyes, and this confused Kara. She did not know what to do with a crying Siv. Siv never cried, she was noisy and clever and cheerful. Tears were an unknown.

“Don’t cry,” Kara tried. “They’re training us up good and proper. We’ll know what to do when the time comes.”

“That’s what I’m saying! We don’t know what to do. Don’t you dream of it?”

Kara did, more often than she would like. In her dreams it was tall as a house, a snarling mass of black fur and red eyes, a dozen or more of them. She had never stuck around long enough to count. It had wings too, black and shiny like leather soaked in blood.

“I dream,” she said, at length.

Siv sniffled. She was a mess, but at least she’d stopped crying. “But your dreams don’t come true. I think it’s soon.”

“How soon?” Kara had feared the Lamia from the moment they had told her of it. She could not have been more than three or four, so little, but she had known a nightmare when she saw one, and it had haunted her ever since.

“Quite soon. I saw the sun go out.”

“That could be any year…”

Siv shrugged. “I don’t know, it seemed soon, y’know. I could feel it. Dreams aren’t always just about seeing. I see fish flying through the air, and broken glass, and I feel splinters in my hands.”

The worry snapped at Kara like a bear on a hunt. She was still so small, scrawny where Siv was muscular, clumsy where she was lithe. She was not ready. “It can’t be yet, it isn’t _fair_ ,” but when had the world ever been fair? If the world were fair she’d never have nightmares, she’d never be forced to spend her hours with Siv. She wouldn’t have magic living beneath her skin, no liquid power pulsing through her little body. 

“I’m not ready,” she said, her voice faint.

Siv stood up and turned her back on Kara. She shoved the first aid kit back into the cabinet above the sink. She turned on the water and splashed her face somewhat, gasping at the contact. She pulled on her socks, easing them over the bruised heel and her reddening instep. She would be sore tomorrow. 

“You are ready,” Siv said, and her voice was strange. She sounded so certain. How could that be? “You have more power in your little finger than anyone else on Earth, y’know?”

Was it true? Kara prodded the magic that ever lay inside her body. It tickled. She could do anything she set her mind to, that was for sure, but she had spent so long learning _not_ to do it. Edda and the rest had taught her restraint. Her mother said she could do anything, that her powers had meant the world was opened up for her.

“You could do anything,” Siv was saying. This was why they never talked; Siv said things, got ideas stuck in her head. “You could… magic the Lamia out of existence, if you wanted, couldn’t you?”

Kara tried. She felt in the black spaces of her mind for the Lamia, for its _stench_ , but she could feel nothing. It was not there, not yet. She could not get a grip on it. “I can’t,” she said, and Siv rolled her eyes.

“Whatever,” she said, and the conversation froze down.

The classroom was cold. Everything was cold here, of course, but sometimes they let the heater run for an hour or so before allowing them into the room. It was at the back of the house, and partially submerged in the snow that pressed up against the far room. There was ice on the ceiling of the far wall.

Kara wore her best scarf, and matching gloves. Siv did not care about the cold. She wore her shirt unbuttoned at the top and lounged in her chair even as she shivered. Siv was not listening to Edda teach.

“Are you listening, Siv?”

“Yes,” came the dreamy reply. She was doodling on her book. Kara leaned over to look: the Lamia, right from Kara’s nightmares, wings spread to gobble up a whole town.

“Is this boring for you?” Edda raised an eyebrow in challenge.

Any normal day would see Siv volley back, but today was weird. Today Siv was moody in a way that she never usually was. Kara could tell she was eager to escape the cabin and its oppressive air. Her parents would come back soon, and Kara would lose her only company. Kara’s mother wasn’t scheduled to pick her up for another two days.

“I’m sorry,” Siv said, and ceased her drawing. Kara could tell she was still thinking about earlier, about how Kara could do anything if she only wanted to do it.

“Is it something you’d like to talk about?” Edda left her own desk and crossed to Siv and Kara’s. Her face was full of concern. 

“No,” was Siv’s reply. Siv was ever certain.

Edda frowned. “Perhaps we should wrap the lesson up there. I’m sure you won’t miss a few extra hours of fractions. We’ll pick it up again tomorrow. Does that cheer you up?”

It didn’t, but Siv fixed her usual smile on her face. 

“You’ll have a few hours to yourselves. If you go out into the snow remember your ice boots. You’re bruised enough. And, remember: Vidar is visiting tonight--I want you both in dresses and hair brushed please.”

The thought of acting sweet for yet another guest did not fill Kara with delight. She tried to shrink in her seat. He would want photographs and to hear all about her training. It left her feeling sick, especially when she thought of what Siv had said earlier.

Lesson over, Edda swept from the room. Her slippers made faint shushing sounds as she went. Siv returned to her doodle. Kara didn’t like this version of Siv.

“Want to--?”

“No. I’m not in the mood.” She was still drawing the Lamia. It was such a detailed picture that it gave Kara goosebumps.

The Lamia could be out there right now, waiting to strike. She could see its furred head, its snout dripping with dribble; she could hear its hot breath crackling on the icy wind, could hear its footsteps as it dragged itself over the snow, feet wet where it had melted. It smelled of death and decay. Kara felt sick. How was it possible that she could smell it so clearly just from Siv’s doodle? She could hear its call on the wind. It was coming. Would it fly when it chased her, or merely walk? Would she have time to be afraid, or would it be quick?

In the distance was a crack, like the breaking of ice. Was the glacier on the move?

“Did you hear that?”

But Siv only looked upon her as though she did not recognise her. “I didn’t hear anything.”

But there it was again, groaning out on the ice. Something was out there. It sounded like heavy footsteps, maybe, and she could feel static in the air. The little hairs on the backs of her arms were standing on end, like a dog enraged.

“I can hear something!” she said, but Siv did not look up.

Instead she packed away her book and pens. “There’s nothing there. Come on. We have to prepare for our guest. Will you magic my hair?”

Kara could say no, but what would be the point? She supposed she had to learn to tolerate Siv eventually, shared fate and all that. Her mother said she was terrible at sharing, said it was because Kara was an only child.

“Sure,” she said, and tried to ignore the sound that was growing in her mind. There was something on the ice.

Vidar was a short man, and round about the belly. He had very little hair that had survived the decades, and red rosy cheeks that reminded Kara of Santa Claus. He had an odd smile, like he knew something Kara didn’t but then, she supposed, didn’t everyone?

He was swigging a beer when Kara entered the kitchen. 

“Ah!” he exclaimed, pure delight on his face. “If it isn’t our brilliant Chosen One! The girl herself!” He sloshed his beer somewhat as he tried to gesture to her. He seemed the clumsy sort, and alcohol did not improve this.

She frowned, but this was nothing new. She sat opposite him at the dining table and his eyes were glowing and enthusiastic. She felt awkward, unsure of where to put her arms. The table was laid for four, a simple dinner.

Siv rolled her eyes, but she was smiling too.

Edda got up, and handed Kara a wine glass, with an inch or so of red liquid. She had her own beer. “Just a little,” she said, “as a treat. To mark the occasion.”

Siv had already finished hers. Kara took a sip and grimaced. She would never get over the taste.

“So, golden girl, how’s it going?” Vidar reached out across the table to pat her shoulder. It was ever the way with guests: they thought touching her was some kind of good luck charm, like maybe some of the magic would ooze off into them. She tolerated it.

“Fine,” she said. She wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to hear. Edda glared at her, and she swallowed. “Everything is going… swimmingly.”

“I see you bloodied this one’s lip,” he gestured to Siv, whose smile died.

“I got her back,” she protested, “show him your ribs.”

Edda cleared her throat. “Not at the table.” This was not how Edda wanted them to behave.

Kara kicked Siv under the table. Siv’s composure did not break, and Kara felt a blow to her right kneecap. Why did Siv know exactly where to strike to cause the most pain? 

“I’m sure she has a mighty bruise,” Vidar told Siv, and it was Kara’s turn to roll her eyes. 

“A little one,” she allowed. It didn’t even hurt anymore. Perhaps she had gone numb.

“How’s their education going, Edda?” said Vidar. “Are they literate, at least?”

Kara held in her gasp. Their visitors weren’t usually so… _rude_.

“In three languages,” Edda said without missing a beat. “English, Norsk, Svenska. I’m starting them on Russian, but that’s still very much in its infancy.”

Vidar laughed. He had an ugly laugh. Kara hoped they wouldn’t invite him again.

“That’s the thing about this kind of education,” he said, “you’ve nothing to measure them against. Sure, they’re smart, but so what?”

“We’re not raising them to be _smart,_ ” Edda countered. “We’re raising them to kill a demon.” Kara felt sick at the mention of it. She heard its staggered footsteps across the ice. How long would it take it to reach the cabin?

Siv’s mouth was hanging open as she watched the volley. Vidar went especially red about the face.

Kara contemplated him. She could turn him into stone, if she so wanted, or shrink him like a beetle and then step on him. She could make him hurt, easy as anything. Her mother said that wasn’t very nice, but Kara wasn’t feeling very nice right now.

She settled for a trapped nerve in his leg. He grimaced, but otherwise did not desist. Maybe something more serious? She felt around for his heart until it was sitting, almost, in her cupped hand. A heart attack would quiet him, for sure.

Siv was looking at her. She shook her head just a little, a twitching of her jaw. _No,_ she mouthed. How did she know? How did she always know?

“And how about that demon, eh?” Vidar chortled. He took another mouthful of his beer.

Edda frowned, and crossed through the kitchen towards the stove. There was meat frying, a fish of some sort, and a pan full of vegetables which she poked at with a spoon.

Kara sighed. Dinner wasn’t even ready and already they were talking about the Lamia. Why did people like to talk about it so much? Didn’t they know it burned her so? 

“It’s coming soon,” Kara said, because it seemed like he wanted to know.

“Oh?”

Everyone looked to Siv. They wanted to hear her dreams. She did not look in the mood. She shrugged. “I guess… I just have a feeling.”

Vidar clapped his hands together. “Vision girl has a _feeling?_ ”

Edda crossed her arms. “Siv’s gut feelings are, I find, usually accurate.”

The footsteps were getting closer. She could smell it now, rotting and rank. Her stomach turned. “I think--” but she wasn’t sure what she thought. The Lamia was real, and it was here, almost. It wasn’t real, was it?

“I think…” Everyone was looking at her. “I think it’s now. Today.”

Vidar took another swig. “What’s today?”

“The Lamia.”

Siv gasped. 

“Can’t you hear it?” Kara asked. “I’ve been dreaming it and now I can hear it. It’s getting stronger, like it’s coming from inside of me.”

Vidar looked alarmed. He turned to Edda, whose own face was awash with fear. She was looking at Kara as though she’d never seen her before, as though she was but a stranger.

“Can she do that?” he asked.

“It’s possible,” Edda replied. “Certainly possible. But we’ve taught her not to.”

“Why do they keep you here if you can’t control these kids? That’s literally your job. One job!” He slammed his clenched fists down onto the table. The assorted plates jingled at the motion. He got to his feet and towered over Kara, red face growing purple, eyes aflame with anger. He was sweating on his bald forehead, and his jaw muscles were twitching.

“Stop it!” he bellowed. He didn’t need to be so loud. “Stop it, right now.”

Edda tried a different approach. “Kara, love, don’t think about it, please?”

What were they talking about? How could she not think about it? It was on its way here, _now,_ and she was terrified. They’d taught her to fear the day it came, and this was it. 

“Think of the bear and--” Edda said, but then the windows smashed in. Siv screamed.

“Make her stop!” she wailed.

Glass was everywhere. The meal was ruined. Vidar looked like a man caged, and he clambered under the table for cover.

“She’s fuckin’ mental,” he yelled. “Can’t you see? She’s doing this.”

“Kara please, stop,” Siv sobbed.

Kara still sat at the table, surrounded by broken glass. There was a bang from the other side of the cabin, a collapsing sort of sound. The Lamia, she figured, had broken through the front door.

“Feel what the bear feels,” Edda was saying, “warm and peaceful. Kara, please!”

“It’s here,” she said instead. She could not imagine the bear anymore, not its dirty fur or its nest of rocks and grass. The bear was long gone, and in its place was a monster.

It rounded the hallway. Every step it took destroyed the house further; it was too big to fit. The ceiling was buckling, the bones of the house folding this way and that under its bulk. 

It must have been three metres tall, covered in scales and fur and blood, towering there in the doorway with its panting mouth open and spitting vile stuff on the beautiful wallpaper. It snarled, like a rabid dog.

Vidar screamed. Siv screamed. Edda grabbed Kara by the shoulders, and shook her, possessed by something Kara had never seen before.

“You have to stop this, Kara, love, please! You can stop it.”

Stop what? She was only a girl, surely they did not expect her to fight it?

“This is how it happens,” Vidar half-choked. “All this time, and _this_ is the way it happens.”

Edda was clutching at her now. Her shoulders were quite sore. The Lamia knelt down and roared, like some captured wild thing, some angered beast. It reached out one slimy arm and plucked Vidar from his hiding place. It considered him for a moment until it bit his head clean off as though it were no effort at all. Its jaws snapped together, yellowish teeth flashing, as it chomped on the man’s fat face. Blood showered everywhere. It flooded her vision like a rising tide.

“Kara listen to me,” Edda sputtered. “You’re doing this. You’re making it real. You can control it. _Please._ Before Siv or I get hurt. You can stop it, you can! Oh, fuck!” She dodged its reaching arm. 

Was she doing this? She was only eleven years old. She wanted her mother.

But, still, she felt it. Her magic was pouring out of her, feeding the Lamia. She sensed it in her mind, growing ever stronger, even as she could barely look at it. The stink of it got caught in the back of her throat. It grew bigger and bigger until she could see nothing but fur, nothing but greasy scales glinting in the faint light.

It was all so loud, so _close._ She made it go silent, and made time go slower. Siv was cowering behind Kara, Edda was facing down the demon, the demon was crouched and ready to strike, and all of them went in slow motion, moving in millimetres, so slow, creeping like vines.

She set Siv free, creating a little bubble of normal time. There were tears on her face and they began to stream again as she came back to speed. She choked on her fear, her blue eyes wide and panicked as she slowly thawed.

“Kara! What are you doing?”

Kara had no idea what she was doing. The Lamia was here and everything was changing. Was this what they had been training her for? She wanted her _mother._

She took Siv’s hand. They never touched, not if they could help it, except when scrapping or training. She took her hand. It was soft and sticky with tears, and trembling like a leaf caught in an updraft.

“I want to go home,” Siv sobbed.

“This is what you saw, isn’t it?”

“Y-y-yes. I saw this. The glass, the food, the monster. I saw it all.”

“What happens next?”

“I-I don’t know. I-I… I haven’t seen it, yet.”

Kara tugged her along, making for the ruined doorway. They skirted around the frozen Lamia, careful not to touch its damp hide.

“Where are we going?” Siv asked. Her face was pale. She must be in shock. Kara felt that, too, deep in her bones. The fear was clamming her up, seizing her muscles and burning the back of her throat.

“I want to go home.”

“We don’t always get what we want, Siv.”

“Wh-why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She wasn’t sure what was happening, or why, or anything. But she knew sure as anything that the Lamia would kill them if they did not leave now. She could keep it frozen for a while, but not forever. She dragged Siv by the hand, through the wrecked hallway and out through the space where the front door used to be.

It was snowing.

“Look, Siv.” She made the snowflakes fat as fists, weighty baubles dropping from the sky. She caught one on her outstretched hand. It was a marvel.

Back in the cabin, the magic wore off. The Lamia screamed, hateful and vile, but Kara did not flinch, not this time.


	2. Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now Kara is a ghost, haunting like a traveller lost on the ice.

It invades her every dream. Now, she’s running across the ice again. It's forever frozen but she still fears it will split, swallow her up like a bird with a worm, no matter how long she’s lived here. Maybe the ice does that to people, maybe you never accept its finality?

She’s little again. In her nightmares she is always little, and the Lamia always pursues her, relentless, tireless, at her back no matter which way she turns. She’s wearing her snow boots and the thick fur coat she’d inherited from some kindly visitor last Christmas. The fur scratches at the delicate skin of her neck. The Lamia, as ever, lollops closer, graceless and growling.

“It isn’t real,” she murmurs, “it’s only a story. It’s only in your head.” 

But that’s the problem, she thinks as she pants across the tundra, things in her head don’t seem to stay there. The magic pours out of her like water through a gutter, and she is powerless to stop it. It’s a river in her bones, rushing to freedom.

The Lamia’s claws brush the back of her ankle, and it is no story. It hasn’t been a story in a long time. There is blood around its maw, human and wolf and bear alike, and it colours the ice. She screams at the contact, and pushes herself to run faster, faster, _faster._ She slips and slides in her panic; it’s hard to believe people do this for fun.

What was it Edda said? “You can make it stop.” How? And anyway Edda is dead, long dead, why is she dreaming about her now?

The dream warps on. The Lamia is ahead of her now. Its claws flash, slick with snow, and it throws its head back and howls like a dog, its neck stretching up into the skies. The aurora is glinting again, but Kara can see nothing but the Lamia, crouching before her, rabid and hungry. It will gobble her up for sure.

She closes her eyes, and wakes up.

* * *

There’s a banging at the door. It is this that has awoken her. She rubs a hand down her face, groggy, and forces herself upright. The banging doesn’t let up. Who could it be? Everyone is dead, dead or gone in seek of survivor’s camps. The world was never the same once she loosed the Lamia on it.

She hobbles into the hallway. Her mother’s door is open just a crack, and Kara can see her feet twitching in her sleep. She doesn’t want to wake her, not yet.

It’s been eight years now, the past two of which Kara has not seen another living person besides her mother. There were never many people about, Svalbard being half-deserted at the best of times, but those living in the village and the town nearby had been the first to fall prey to the hungry demon. It didn’t even leave their bones.

And now there is someone knocking--thundering--at the door. And it is a some _one_ and not a some _thing_ because there is a rhythm to it, a beat that sounds tinny in the empty landscape. There is nothing for the sound to reflect off. The cabin is the only building for miles.

The house had scarcely survived the Lamia, but its bones are intact and it is in these bones that Kara and her mother live. There’s a roof, four walls, concrete flooring, but otherwise little to remind her of what this place used to be before. It was home, once. Now Kara is a ghost, haunting like a traveller lost on the ice.

Her mother is sick, the kind of sickness that Kara cannot understand never mind heal. She takes the sickness out of her body but it always seems to grow back again. Her mother sleeps as often as she can. It is a miracle she has survived this long. The Lamia has not touched her, and this is probably Kara’s doing, but it is not conscious. She cannot control it.

Kara limps down the stairs, hopping over the ones that have met their demise. She stares in the mirror that runs the length of the stairs, and it is not a pretty sight. Her hair is a mess, as can be expected, and it sticks up in dark tufts. Her eyes are sallow and sunken, her face pale as snow. She is not well. She has not been well for years. The dream-memory sticks in her brain, eating her from the inside out.

She pauses at the door. It isn’t perfectly closed; she’d had to prop it up, mostly to keep the cold air out. She climbs through the living room window whenever she wants to go out. Her guest is not knocking on the door per se, rather on the posts of flaking concrete that flank it.

“Who’s there?”

The knocking ceases. “Kara?”

No. No. It cannot be. Kara flinches. She’s _dead_ , she must be dead, surely?

“I’m hallucinating,” she announces to the dusty hallway. It was bound to happen eventually. Even the best people go mad under circumstances such as these.

“You’re not hallucinating,” comes Siv’s voice. So familiar. It curls around Kara’s brain, that voice of hers. She wants so badly for it to be real. She has missed her, or rather missed the role Siv used to fill. They were never friends, but they were connected.

“I’m not?”

“No. Open the door and let me in.” Now that _is_ Siv, direct and commanding. 

“You might be a ghost.” Or worse.

She waits for it.

“ _Kara._ It’s me.”

Kara clutches for the door handle, before realising. “The door doesn’t open. You’ll have to climb in the window.”

She crosses through into the living room, ducking low under a fallen beam, and by the time she’s there Siv has stepped through and stands there in all her glory. She looks old, but then maybe so does Kara. She is wearing a thick parka and a thick hat but underneath it all are her bright eyes, that easy smile, the little tuft of hair that is, Kara notices, now black as sin.

“You dyed your hair,” is all she can manage. Should they hug? Should she touch her? Kara has no idea what one does when reuniting with your childhood rival.

“It’s henna,” is Siv’s disinterested reply. This is not what she came here to discuss. “We need to talk.”

“I thought you were dead…”

“I’m fine. I thought maybe _you_ were dead, or gone mad or something.”

“You just left.” After the Lamia had killed Edda, Kara had dragged Siv’s shaking body out onto the ice. She had magicked away the cold and the wet but she left the fear, and they had walked to the nearest town. In the chaos of the Lamia’s pursuit, Kara had lost Siv. She’d found her mother, but never Siv.

“I went _home,_ ” Siv says. “To my parents. I had to get them to safety.”

“I’m sorry,” she had never meant to apologise, but here it is, sudden and needy. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

She can feel it even now, the magic that thrums through her veins. It grows between them, ever present. There is no escaping it. 

She wants this to be a happy reunion, but she knows it cannot be. Magic cannot replace reality, no matter how much she wants it.

“Whatever,” Siv shrugs. “It happened. We need to talk, like I said.”

Kara does not want to talk, but Siv clearly does. Kara does not need to ask what is at the forefront of her mind.

Truthfully she had thought it dead. It had been eight long years. Surely the world did not bow down and take its annihilation peaceably?

“You want to talk about killing it?” Kara cannot bring herself to say its name aloud.

“Yes. Of course. It’s wreaking havoc out there. You haven’t seen it.”

“I’m sorry--”

“No you’re not. That’s the problem. You’re not sorry about any of this.” Siv’s eyes flash. She stomps her way across the room and lowers herself into the dusty old armchair, never taking her eyes off Kara. This is not how Kara wants their reunion to go. 

“You don’t even know how to be sorry, and if you did you’d only magic it away.”

“I’m not ashamed of my gifts.”

Siv radiates shock. She scoffs. “Your ‘gifts’ ended the world as we know it, Kara!”

This feels like a slap. She hadn’t _meant_ for that to happen. Can’t Siv see that? And she doesn’t need reminding of that fact. Every living creature on Svalbard dead in a month. She knows.

“I didn’t--”

“You know what? Whatever. If you’re truly sorry, then help me fix it.”

There is a silence that stretches between them but it is not the silence of old; it is a painful silence, like needles are pricking into Kara’s skin. Siv sits and lets it hang between them. She is ever patient, Siv.

“Fix it? You want me to kill it?” 

Kara backs away. She lights a fire in the center of the room, contained by a pile of logs she’d dried out the previous evening. The fire crackles nicely, and it lulls her somewhat. She throws a crumpled newspaper onto it and watches the face of some old Russian guy curl and blacken before the embers consume it.

Siv’s face looks weird in the low light. She’s thinking things over. “I want you to try. You’re the Chosen One, aren’t you?” Her smile is lopsided but it’s there.

Kara hasn’t thought about the prophecy in years. The story it told was a sad one, at least for now. Kara figures the old men who wrote it down had never expected it to end like this. 

“I can’t kill it,” she says eventually. “Have you seen it? It’s invulnerable.”

“It’s invulnerable because you made it that way. I had a dream, Kara, and in that dream you killed it. We burned its body and buried the ash, and all the ice around it melted, and grass grew--actual grass, Kara, here on the ice!”

“How would grass grow on a glacier?”

“I don’t--I--it’s just a dream. It’s just symbolism, it probably means there will be new life in the new world, or something, it doesn’t matter. What matters is: you killed it. You have to. It’s fate.”

Fate is a tricky thing. Fate, it seems, has abandoned her here. Can it be done? Can she kill the Lamia and fix the world, all in the name of fate?

“How would I kill it?”

Siv frowns. “Don’t think of it as ‘killing’ it, think of it as unmaking it. You manifested it in the first place, yeah? Now it’s time for you to undo that.”

Kara cannot fathom this, but Siv is Siv; she would not lie. If she saw it in a dream then that is the truth.

“I also dreamt about a whale carcass. When was the last time you had meat?”

The hills are treacherous. Even with her ice boots Kara still slips. The grippy soles are thick and ragged, but they are no match for the Arctic landscape. Hiking on an ice cap is never an appetising thought, whale or no. Kara is dragging the cart behind her and it snaps at her ankles as she goes.

Siv is in front, always out of reach, and she turns back and fixes Kara with her best look. There’s a little smile hidden there beneath the surface, but Kara can feel it. The sky is grey and Siv looks beautiful against it, fierce and hopeful. She magics away the clouds, just to watch the sun play across her face.

“Where’s this whale, then?” she says, just to break the spell.

“It beached at Kapp Mohn. Dead already, poor thing, but I’m thinking of the flesh.”

“Yeah. It’s almost worth all this hiking.”

Siv laughs, a proper laugh. Kara hasn’t heard that sound in so long, it draws her in.

“Fuck hiking, right?” Kara tries.

Siv’s smile wavers. She shrugs, non-committal. “Fuck everything!”

“Fuck the Lamia.”

“That’s the spirit!”

And then Kara realises she’s said it out loud, the very thing she has avoided thinking of these past eight years. It is Siv, again, bringing all of this to the surface. Why is it ever this way with Siv? Was it the fate, or something else?

Kara stumbles. “Are you… bribing me with food, to get to me to agree to kill it?”

“It’s no bribery.” Siv does not look back. She is leaving a long trail in the snow like some monstrous snail. She is busy focusing on her feet, looking for rocks or errant patches of black ice, and does not see Kara’s frown. 

“So…?”

“So nothing. I know you know this is the right thing to do. It’s past time we ended this, don’t you think?”

Kara doesn’t think--she’s tried to _avoid_ thinking for three-thousand-odd days. She has been alone all that time; her mother is no company at all. Her mother is dying, likely, and even Kara cannot stop death.

“What if the Lamia has found the whale before us?” she says instead.

Siv sighs. “It was last sighted in Stavanger, three days ago. And besides, it doesn’t like dead meat. It likes the thrill of the chase. It likes to hear them cry.”

Every person it kills is dead because of Kara. There is no hiding from that fact, not out here in the snow and the cold with the air whipping around them like a blanket of ice. There is nothing to shelter behind no matter how much she longs to cower.

Siv, ever Siv, has not noticed that Kara has stopped. She keeps plodding on and Kara runs to catch up to her. There is silence but for the lashing of the waves upon the shore, the steady solid sloshing that draws them ever nearer.

They crest a hillock and suddenly the scene opens up, to a gritty wet beach, the choppy Erik Eriksenstretet and the Barents Sea beyond which will, eventually, lead to Russia. The Lamia is out there somewhere on the mainland, wrecking its havoc, decimating the population. And all because of Kara.

Siv has jogged across the beach and reached the whale carcass. It is quite the thing to behold. A humpback, not yet fully grown, resplendent in the sand. For some reason the Lamia does not play with sea life; it prefers to hunt on land. The creature is indeed dead, and as Kara nears it she smells the sickly sweet stench as evidence.

“I don’t think this is safe to eat,” she points out.

Siv does not care. Siv is ever Siv. Siv would eat anything so long as it was tasty. “It’s fine. I dreamt about it for a reason, right? We were meant to come here. It’s fate.”

“Fate does not usually concern itself with our diets,” Kara says.

“Well--” Siv slaps the whale’s great belly. “It does today.”

She shrugs off her backpack and roots through it, coming up with a knife. It is comically large against her slight frame but she wields it with ease. The years have not been kind to Siv.

“You’re just going to--” Kara mimes something. Siv smiles.

“Yes,” and she digs right in there, forcing the knife into the whale’s lush coat of blubber. It’s probably polluted to all hell and bursting with plastic residue, but Kara finds herself looking forward to the meal. She found some salt in the back of the cupboard recently, crystalised and clumpy but salt is salt and meat is meat, no matter where it comes from.

As she watches Siv work, she watches her. She is still tall, still fair and beautiful, but she is bruised and broken. Kara is broken too, prophecies tend to do that, but with Siv it is different. Kara is broken right down to her soul, perhaps she will never be whole until she has fulfilled her destiny, but Siv--Siv’s wound is right there beneath the surface, festering. Siv holds herself responsible. How can that be? She was only a little girl.

As she watches, Kara notices a thin ring on her finger, bearing one solitary diamond. Was she married? Kara seethes, the jealousy creeping up from the pit of her stomach like a viper ready to attack.

What does she expect? They’ve been apart for eight years, and anyway they weren’t even friends. She pushes away her envy. Siv is Siv, they are fated rivals, yes, but partners too. Only they can defeat the Lamia; the prophecy says so.

“I’ll do it,” she says, to the beach and the rocks and the snow beyond.

“What?” Siv does not look up from the task at hand. She is cutting free a cube of blubber, hacking at the poor thing’s skin and flesh. 

“I’ll kill the Lamia. I’m ready.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. If I kill it, I can leave this place, yes? I can come back to Norway with you, or wherever it is that you live.” Maybe there would be a doctor there who could help her mother. It was worth a try.

Siv chews her lip. She pauses in her hacking, leaving the knife half-sticking out the creature’s hide. “I live in Madrid.”

“But it’s nice, right?”

“Yeah. The Lamia hasn’t reached that far south yet. But Kara… you’d have to leave it out on the ice.”

“Leave what?”

“Your power. Your magic. What you do. It has to die out here with the Lamia, understand?”

“But you still have your dreams? You know as well as anyone that we can’t just be rid of our magic. Your dreams are as much a part of you as your fingernails!”

Siv sighs. The frustration is close to the surface, where Siv wears all her emotions. “Yes, but my magic never summoned a literal demon into being. You’re… dangerous, Kara. If you won’t leave the magic behind, then you can stay here where you can’t hurt anyone else. Forever if needs be.”

Kara considers this as Siv returns to her grisly task. The magic has ever been a part of her, since the very day she was born. It was, after all, her oldest friend. What was it mama had said, when Kara was only tiny? _She can do things._

She reaches out with her magic to the whale. She sharpens Siv’s blade, pushes it through the flesh easier, until the blubber slips away from the corpse as one solid cube of meat.

“It’s not always dangerous,” she says with an eyebrow raised, but Siv is not looking. She is hoisting the meat into the cart. She struggles and so Kara makes it light as a feather.

“Stop that,” Siv says, but does not complain further as she seizes the handle of the cart and approaches Kara. “After we kill the Lamia, leave the magic behind. A fresh start, yeah? Come to Madrid with me, I’ll show you around. You’d like it there.”

Kara is unsure. She has always lived her life in isolation, it was the very nature of the prophecy and her powers that necessitated living far away from anyone she might hurt. It was why her mother had agreed to let her come to the cabin in the first place. But if she is leaving her magic in the snow… 

Siv stops beside her. She reaches out to take her gloved hand. There is a solid quality to it, a kind of definite certainty that has always been Siv’s. Like an anchor, there by the sea.

“You deserve a fresh start. I know you can do this. I’ll help you.”

Edda had always said there was nothing they couldn’t do together. Kara thinks maybe she used to say that just to get them to stop fighting but, maybe, it could be true.

“You’ll help me?”

“Yes. I promise.” She squeezes her fingers. Kara wishes it wasn’t so cold, that their hands were bare and touching properly. She wants to feel Siv’s warm skin. Siv has never touched her kindly, not ever.

“What’s it like? In Spain?”

“There’s no goddamn ice, for one thing.”

Kara laughs, and she is surprised how easily the laugh comes to her, how _normal_ it feels. She thinks of running barefoot on a beach. She’s lived by the coast her entire life yet has never felt the sand. She could take her mother sunbathing, in the _warmth_ , take her to a place where the sun isn’t yet another source of pain.

She takes another breath and is about to speak again, when there is a terrible scratching noise, like fingers dragged down a chalkboard.

“Ice shift,” she says, because Siv looks worried, but Siv shakes her head, her shocked mouth hanging open.

“It isn’t the ice.”

“Then what--” There is it again, a screaming coming from beneath the ground, like the world itself is getting ready to gobble them up. “An avalanche?” But there are no mountains nearby.

Siv shakes her head again. “It’s here.”

Kara has no time to react. It’s as if her heart stops. In the middle distance, the ice cracks, splits like a walnut, and out crawls the Lamia, all eight feet of it, gory, clumsy, steaming in the cold air. Bits of soil and ice are sticking to its coat. It looks hungry.

“I thought it was in--”

“It was!”

“Well, then--”

“I don’t know!”

It sees them. Perhaps it can always see them. Kara has never stopped to consider the Lamia’s place in the prophecy, but it was never just the two of them, was it? The Lamia is fated to die by her hand. Kara is not the only one who has been trying to outrun destiny. If it had any sense it would run far, far away.

It slips on the ice. It is ever graceless.

Siv gasps, and drops the cart’s handle. “Kara. Now’s the time.”

“Time for what?” All her training seems to have slipped out of her fingertips, her brain is empty and frozen. She hasn’t practiced with the staff in years and, anyway, what good would a wooden stick be?

“Close your eyes. Think. Feel for it. Undo it.”

Undo it? It is not as easy as that, but Kara jams her eyes shut. It is difficult with the thing lolloping towards her like a ship tossed around by choppy seas, but she manages to keep them closed. She lets the magic thrum around her head, and it feels like a migraine does, a kind of pressure in her skull that grows ever steady.

It stretches out its extended arms and takes wing, hovering in the air some fifty feet above. It could drop and kill her in an instant, but something stills it.

The pain is almost too much to bear. She drops to her knees in the snow, and the cold brings a new pain of its own. 

“I can’t do it,” she has to force the words out. Her jaw is seizing up. This is taking her entire body, all her effort, and still the creature floats there, an oversized bat with Utahraptor claws. There is no training that could have prepared her for this, no lesson she could have absorbed. She squeezes her eyes shut and _sees._

In the darkness there are several pairs of red eyes, too many pairs. They glint in the void. There is only her and the Lamia, separate but connected. Even Siv’s pleas have faded out to background static.

It is every nightmare she has ever had, all at once. It is too much, she thinks, how is she supposed to breathe, let alone destroy it?

It guns for her, a beast in flight, and she reaches out her hand and screams “no!”. She feels it, captures it in her hand and wills it to stop, to freeze, to pause. _Just give me a second to breathe._

It works. She opens her eyes and there it is, hanging in the air, eyes frantic but motionless. Siv is beside her.

Kara laughs, a breathy half-cough. “It worked!”

Siv doesn’t rip her eyes off it. “Great! Now… get rid of it.”

Kara clenches her fist and shrinks the Lamia down to mouse-size. It is easy enough to do but, god, it takes so much effort. The Lamia is a thing of magic, a thing summoned from nothingness by a frightened little girl, made of fears and nightmares and stories. It is _strong_. It fights against her and any other day she wouldn’t be able to do it but, today--today, Siv is here. She came back.

The mouse-sized monster roars anew, and stretches itself back to its original size. Kara does not waste a second.

She pushes out with her fist and the Lamia goes scuttling across the ice, unbalanced and kicking up snow. It screams in anger, and Kara feels for its heart. She need only stop it for a second, just a little squeeze, and it could be over.

It shrinks again, and wraps its wings around itself. Kara reaches for its eyes, the whole dozen of them, and prods them one by one, adding cataracts. It is all she can think of, and it slows it down. The creature claws at its face, even angrier now. It returns to its regular size, fighting against her all the while, and Kara is dwarfed by it. She has always been dwarfed by it.

It draws ever nearer, and reaches out with its grimy mouth to bite at the long-forgotten cart. Siv dives backwards out of reach but manages to overbalance and ends up on her butt in the snow. It snatches up the whale blubber and swallows it whole, cart and all.

The Lamia stretches out to snap at Siv’s legs and Kara turns its teeth to foam at the last second. Still, it has powerful jaws with a powerful bite and Siv cries out in pain. Blood pools around her. The snow is pink again.

“Siv!”

“Nothing’s broken,” she says, through gritted teeth. “It just tore the skin. It looks worse than it is. Keep going, you almost had it then.”

Spurred on, Kara drags Siv across the ice, plucking her from the Lamia’s danger zone. She closes her eyes and listens for its heart, for the _thrum-thrum_ that she has dreamt of since before she can remember.

There.

She hears it, a taunt and a trigger. 

She reaches out for it. It seems so far away, but it grows ever louder. She counts its pulse, sees its ribcage expand and contract as it gulps down air. She smells the adrenaline, the hunger in its scarlet eyes. She reaches with her mind and takes its heart in-hand. 

She squeezes and it is divine. The noise it makes! It is like music, the music of the dying, the scream of despair and realisation: this is the end. She knows it. 

She squeezes, halting the beating. The muscles struggle against her fingers. It is strong. She holds onto the Lamia in her mind, forces it to be steady, forces it to die, and die it does, stinking and screaming, there in the snow. It collapses, and so does Kara.

“Fuck,” she exclaims to the ice. 

Siv comes running up behind her, limping on her bad leg. She grabs her by the elbows and hauls her upright. Siv has ever been strong, ever dutiful in her training. Kara is skin and bone and allows herself to be lifted.

Siv envelopes her in a hug. “You did it!”

Kara stops the bleeding in her leg. She knits the skin together like a doctor with sutures, forces the healthy skin to grow around it. It is rough work but it soothes the pain. Kara never wants Siv to feel pain again, but pain is human, and so she leaves a little ache.

“Is it dead?” Kara is not certain. She thinks it is, and she hopes, but she has wished it dead for so long now. She thought it would feel different. Why isn’t she cheering?

Siv ends the hug and approaches the bulk in the snow, and she limps no more. She kicks at it. It does not move.

“I think so,” she says. “This is kind of how I saw it in my dream. There was more blood in my dream, but this works too.”

Kara prods around inside the Lamia, feeling for any resistant spark of life, but it is devoid. Its brain is dead, its body empty, a shell, right there on the ice, a shadow of a nightmare. She feels tears prickle at her eyes, and she does not quite know why she is crying, but the tears come hot and stinging. They feel like candle wax on her cold cheeks.

“Siv,” she starts, but she does not know how she wants that sentence to end. Just: Siv.

“Start the fire,” Siv instructs. “Just like my dream.”

Kara’s head is swimming like an avalanche roaring but she manages to light the flames. They lick up and steam in the cold air, filling it with smoke that streaks up into the sky, as if to say “here, here is where it died”. There are not often fires on the glacier, but now it burns orange and red, a marker to signify the end. The snow melts and runs down the hill, a little stream of triumph.

Kara falls back to her knees as she watches it burn. Her legs aren’t strong enough to hold her yet, she feels as though she is burning alongside it. Why does she feel like this?

“Those people are still dead,” she whispers, and Siv cocks her head to show she’s listening. “They’re all still dead because of me. I could have ended it years ago and maybe they’d be alive. How many people has it killed?”

“There’s no point worrying about that. It’s over now.”

Siv is trying to be comforting, Kara gets that, but she doesn’t _understand._

“I caused this. All of it. How many?”

Siv screws her face up, trying to hide the horror but it shines all too clear, like the fire they are both watching. “Two hundred million dead, another fifty milllion missing, presumed dead. Roughly. Mostly Russians and Northern Europeans, though there’s also various NATO missions trying to put it down. It left no survivors. They dropped a nuke on it in Murmansk; the forests are still burning now, so they say.”

There is silence but for the crackling fire. It stinks of charred flesh, and whatever pheromones ooze from the Lamia’s body.

Kara throws back her head. “Fuck!” she yells at the white, white sky.

“But it’s over now. It’s done.”

“I was just a little girl. I was so scared.”

“I know. I know you were. So was I.”

But Siv didn’t cause a massacre, did she? Siv didn’t let loose a literal nightmare. Siv only dreamt. Siv only saw the future; Kara was the one who made it.

“What did they expect to happen?” Siv asks no one, except maybe the ice.

The question hangs in the air. The Lamia continues to burn, and the snow around it melts revealing the thick crust of ice that makes up the glacier. No grass will grow here, unless Kara makes it.

Siv takes her hand. “Remember our deal, yeah?”

Kara remembers. Right now, the magic is keeping her warm. How can she ever say goodbye to it?

“Let this be the end of it,” Siv continues. “We’ll burn the Lamia and bury the ash, then it’s done. A fresh start, yeah? In Spain, or anywhere you like. We could go anywhere.”

Kara has never left Svalbard, has barely left Austfonna park. She doesn’t know if she’s ready to leave the polar landscape, not yet, but the world waits for her. She needs only to step on a boat and let the ocean do the work. She could find a new home, a better one than before. Her mother certainly would be happier.

“Okay,” she says, tentatively, after several drawn out moments of relative silence. “I’ll come with you. A new start.” 

She speeds the Lamia’s funeral on, turning the creature into a large pile of ash, just a clump of soggy carbon which the wind picks up as it whips around them. It crusts together in the frozen air, already freezing. It feels weird, to have her worst nightmare reduced to dust, like she is burying a part of herself out here.

She covers it over with snow. You won’t even know it’s there, unless you go looking for it, and no one ever will.


End file.
